Any tips on "breaking" Xenogears and Chrono Trigger?

[MrPopo]

In Chrono Trigger speed caps out at 16 (capped stats become **) while other stats cap at 99. Speed gives you the most bang for your buck, so +speed accessories are generally the best. Save up your speed tabs for the end game; at end game many of the best spells costs 20 TP per cast which means you have to pop ethers frequently if you don't equip gold/silver studs (75%/50% reduced cost). So figure out your final boss part and feed them your hoarded speed tabs.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I'm surprised you haven't played Xenogears bone!

Xenogears and Xenosaga I-III are sitting next to me on shelves collecting dust. I'll try them someday, I'm not sure I can handle their epicness right now.

[Yancakes]

Usually if you "break" an RPG it becomes little more than a chore to just wade through the remaining battles to see the story to the end. Is this really what you want to do?

Yeah, pretty much I know it's silly, but typically in games (FFVII, VIII and Star Ocean 2 especially) I spend the majority of my time grinding and tweaking characters so that I can just plow through everything in the game with physical attacks. It doesn't sound fun, but to me, for some reason, it is. I like to see how few hits it takes me to defeat final bosses.

It also means I can focus on the story, as silly as they usually are and as bad as the dialogue usually is, without stressing out about getting through tough dungeons.

I felt CT was quite well balanced to go through it easily without grinding at all (some bosses are exceptions to that), as long as you put in a tiny bit of effort into what the enemies do and use reasonable tactics (like focusing damage on one enemy to get rid of it etc.).

I also thought Xenogears doesn't need much grinding.

This has been my general impression with both games, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything important.

In Chrono Trigger it's advisable to open chest in the future first, then travel back in time and open them there too - that way you get 2 items instead of one. It's also worth making sure you steal off of enemies. One boss near the end of the game can be challenged and stolen from several times if you have the patience, and the equipment he gives you makes the final boss a breeze.

To expand upon this...

Eventually you'll reach a point in the game where you can get the sealed chests. Some of these are "upgradeable", they are located in 600 and 1000 AD. To get the best equipment, first examine the chests in 600 AD, but decline to open them. Then go to 1000 AD and open then. Then go back to 600 AD and open the chests. You'll get double the amount of goods.

Chrono Trigger isn't too tough and is fairly linear. There's not much grinding, just make sure you don't avoid the enemy encounters and your level should be sufficient. Eventually some sidequests will open up, which you'll probably want to complete to gain more levels and great equipment. If you're not using a guide, you'll be given hints to the nature of the sidequests from the guy in the End of Time. Be aware that the Sunken Desert sidequest can very difficult if you try to tackle it early on.

Cool! This is great information, I would never have thought that the chests would work like that. And I will be sure to keep an eye out for the old man to see what he says

Don't know much about Xenogears. That game always scared me off, it looks so daunting.

Aside from calamity or whatever it was called, it's been pretty easy so far. Though I am aware that the second disc basically becomes a text-a-thon.

That being said, I'm not really sure how to learn new special moves. Do I just try different combinations when I'm actually attacking, or do I learn them when I hit certain levels?

In Chrono Trigger speed caps out at 16 (capped stats become **) while other stats cap at 99. Speed gives you the most bang for your buck, so +speed accessories are generally the best. Save up your speed tabs for the end game; at end game many of the best spells costs 20 TP per cast which means you have to pop ethers frequently if you don't equip gold/silver studs (75%/50% reduced cost). So figure out your final boss part and feed them your hoarded speed tabs.

Thanks! I've been using power and magic tabs so far, but I will hold off on using the speed tabs for now.

[Xeogred]

You DO indeed have to be certain levels to learn some combo's in Xenogears, but it's still random on how you discover them (unless you just want to look them up).

[MrPopo]

You DO indeed have to be certain levels to learn some combo's in Xenogears, but it's still random on how you discover them (unless you just want to look them up).

Did they ever figure out a definitive "this is how you learn a combo", or is it still the slightly voodoo "once your'e at the right level you keep trying this and it eventually learns"?

[Xeogred]

You DO indeed have to be certain levels to learn some combo's in Xenogears, but it's still random on how you discover them (unless you just want to look them up).

Did they ever figure out a definitive "this is how you learn a combo", or is it still the slightly voodoo "once your'e at the right level you keep trying this and it eventually learns"?

Now that I really think about it yeah, I think it is the latter ... haha. I think you did have to do the combo's a few times to completely "learn" them, but it's been awhile. I just definitely remember it was kind of weird how this all worked.

[Ivo]

To learn combos in Xenogears you need to do pack in the certain type of move in the right place of the "combo" many times. Most normally, the moves you miss to learn a combo are the less frequent ones in the last possible positions.

For example, a combo may need a heavy/fierce strike in the 4th position. So you will need to do many times light light light Heavy or something.
You may also be missing enough of the light strikes at the very last position if you don't typically use the all light sequence during normal playing.
It is a bit weird but sort of makes sense.

If you like physical attacks, for CT you will probably like to keep Ayla in the party.

Ivo.

[Godot102]

Quite frankly I felt that Chrono Trigger was pretty hard to break on the first playthrough....NewGame + is a different story though . If you are playing the DS version of it, I believe they added a new sword to Crono that gave him an extremely high critical hit rate. Not to mention he also gets an item later in the game to give him a pretty high counter rate.

As for Xenogears, you just need to grind until you learn the deathblows. As far as I remember you really didn't get game breaking equipment until extremely late in disc 2.

[BoringSupreez]

Quite frankly I felt that Chrono Trigger was pretty hard to break on the first playthrough....NewGame + is a different story though . If you are playing the DS version of it, I believe they added a new sword to Crono that gave him an extremely high critical hit rate. Not to mention he also gets an item later in the game to give him a pretty high counter rate.

Personally, I found CT to be one of the easiest JRPGs I've ever played through, although I know some people who found it difficult. New Game+ is so easy it's not even fun, though. It's almost like using cheats it's so unbalanced.

[MrPopo]

If you are playing the DS version of it, I believe they added a new sword to Crono that gave him an extremely high critical hit rate.

For when a sword that gives 70% crit is not enough.